Tuesday, April 27, 2010

This weekend, my cousin helped host a baby shower for her best friend, Lupe. Lupe, a few months ago, hosted a great baby shower for my cousin. So I knew that I had to do a little something to thank her for being such a great friend and to congratulate her. What better way than to add a quick and easy scrapbooking element to her party!

I decided to make an album where her guests could jot down mommy notes for this first-time mama.

I didn't have much time to complete the project, so I needed to keep the layout simple and clean. I also was FORCED to try to work in gender neutral colors because Lupe and her husband didn't choose to find out the sex of their baby. This, of course, killed me! I have so many adorable baby boy and baby girl papers and embellishments! I also was told that I had to absolutely stay away from pastels because Lupe despises them.

You can already begin to imagine my panic! LOL.

Anyway, I decided to stick with yellows and greens (she lives in WI and is a Packers' fan) and to try to keep it on the antiquey side.

From what I hear, the album was a huge hit and the guests filled it up with some great advice. Here are a few pics.

Sorry for the awful pics...I was in a rush to get it to my cousin for the shower, so I didn't have much time to play with lighting and placement of the album for better quality pics!

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into a dilemma - how to properly thank someone who was about to do something wonderful for me.

Who was this amazing person - my friend Melissa. She is my boss's wife and an incredible chef who was amazingly gracious in hosting our entire team for dinner a la Mel. I knew it was going to be incredible, and I have expected being banned from coming to help early.

As she is one my active blog readers (of my original blog), I knew that I needed to do a little something of the scrapbook variety to show my gratitude.

Now, if you're an avid scrapbooker like me, then you know that there are some topics that are seriously lacking pre-made embellishments. Some of the areas that are still waiting for new tools and stickers are cooking, adoption, specific ethnicities and cultures, etc. So what was I do to for Chef Mel?

Well, I started by doing a search in old idea books, favorite blogs and Scrapbook.com. I found my source of inspiration on the Scrapbook.com website. The link to the original posting can be found here.

I thought this original post was so cute, but I wanted to take it a bit further - especially since I love mini scrapbook albums.

So rather than a handmade thank you card, I decided to make a mini thank you album. I'm also thinking of doing something familiar for my mom's Mother's Day gift.

Here are the great pictures Mel took of my mini-album (she's not only an amazing chef, she also takes the best pictures!).

Sunday, April 25, 2010

If you are as old as I am, then you probably also have a stack of floppy disks laying around the house that you've wondered how to recycle without compromising the data you stored on them.

Considering most computers don't even have floppy disk drives anymore, the release of the data is probably not as scary to anyone. However, knowing that some of my disks had some personal data, I've still held onto quite a few wondering what to do with them. Call me paranoid.

Well...I think I've come up with a solution! I'm going to use my scrapbooking tools to destroy the disk safely and to use the data part in a craft. I'm going to show you all how to make flowers out of your old disks!

First you take your standard disk like this one:

Then pry off the top metal part. This is pretty easy to do, it's not very thick metal.:

Now for the hardest part....open up the disk. This takes a bit of force. As long as you hold onto the plastic casing alone, the inside data ribbon will be just fine. So pop it open like this:

I haven't quite found a use for the casing, so I'm putting it to the side for now. Perhaps one of my readers will have a better idea for me.

With the round data ribbon, I use scissors to cut petals all around. To make sure that no one could restore the ribbon (I told you I'm paranoid), I've gone in and cut out some sections to give it a little dimension.

Lastly, I used pigment ink to give the ribbon some color. Please note that the ribbon does not soak in the ink, so it does take some time to dry. I left my first flower out to dry for at least a night. I would recommend playing with the different types of inks to see what works best for the look you want. You could try acrylic paints, alcohol-based inks (not sure what that would do the ribbon), maybe even a little distressing!

The idea is to not be afraid to try something new to get a fun look. To finish it up, I embellish the center with paper or bling.

I'm going to play around with a few layouts and these floppy disk flowers to showcase how you can use them for your next scrapbook project.

When I first starting blogging, my intention was to use it to reach some personal goals. I thought the blog would be a great way to keep on my task with my scrapbook room organizing and my personal projects.

However, it turned into a way for me to not only share techniques but to also to vent about situations in my personal life. I've celebrated the positives, I've cried about the heartbreaking stories around the world, and I've vented to release anger.

Well, a colleague actually recommended I try making a blog that is just focused on scrapbook techniques and past projects.